Electronic transaction card

Abstract

An electronic transaction card communicates with an add-on slot of an intelligent electronic device. The add-on slot may be a memory card slot. The intelligent electronic device may be a mobile phone or other device with or without network connectivity. The electronic transaction card may have magnetic field producing circuitry compatible with magnetic card readers, smartcard circuitry, other point-of-sale interfaces, or any combination thereof.

1. An apparatus comprising:
 a stripe to communicate with a magnetic card reader; and 
 a memory card interface to communicate with an intelligent electronic device, the memory card interface being compatible with an add-on slot in an intelligent electronic device; 
 wherein the apparatus has dimensions smaller than a credit card, and wherein the stripe includes circuitry to produce at least one time-varying magnetic field. 
 
   
   
     2. The apparatus of  claim 1  further comprising a processing element coupled to the interface and to the stripe. 
   
   
     3. The apparatus of  claim 1  further comprising an embedded swipe sensor to sense when the stripe is swiped through a magnetic card reader. 
   
   
     4. The apparatus of  claim 1  further comprising nonvolatile memory accessible by the intelligent electronic device. 
   
   
     5. An apparatus comprising:
 a stripe to communicate with a magnetic card reader; 
 a memory card interface to communicate with an intelligent electronic device, the memory card interface being compatible with an add-on slot in an intelligent electronic device; 
 a processing element coupled to the interface and to the stripe; and 
 a memory element to hold programming information for the stripe; 
 wherein the apparatus has dimensions smaller than a credit card. 
 
   
   
     6. An apparatus comprising:
 means for communicating through a memory card slot in an intelligent electronic device; 
 circuitry for producing at least one time-varying magnetic field to represent financial transaction data; and 
 means for storing the financial transaction data. 
 
   
   
     7. The apparatus of  claim 6  further including software to be installed on the intelligent electronic device. 
   
   
     8. The apparatus of  claim 6  further comprising nonvolatile memory accessible through the means for communicating through a memory card slot. 
   
   
     9. The apparatus of  claim 6  further comprising means to sense whether the memory card has been swiped through a magnetic card reader. 
   
   
     10. An apparatus comprising:
 means for communicating through a memory card slot in an intelligent electronic device; 
 means for producing at least one time-varying magnetic field to represent financial transaction data; 
 means for storing the financial transaction data; and 
 software to be installed on the intelligent electronic device, wherein the software includes a module for single transaction account number generation. 
 
   
   
     11. The apparatus of  claim 10  wherein the software is configured to run on a mobile phone. 
   
   
     12. A memory card comprising:
 a memory card slot interface; and 
 circuitry including at least one conductor for carrying current for producing a time-varying magnetic field compatible with a magnetic card reader. 
 
   
   
     13. The memory card of  claim 12  wherein the circuitry is configured to produce a plurality of time-varying magnetic fields compatible with a point-of-sale transaction device. 
   
   
     14. The memory card of  claim 13  further comprising nonvolatile memory accessible via the memory card slot interface. 
   
   
     15. The memory card of  claim 12  further comprising a processing device coupled to the memory card slot interface and the circuitry for producing a time-varying magnetic field. 
   
   
     16. The memory card of  claim 15  further comprising a software component that when executed by the processing device causes the circuitry to produce the time-varying magnetic field. 
   
   
     17. The memory card of  claim 15  further comprising software to be transferred to a device other than the memory card.